Pakistan People’s Party Parliamentarians President Asif Ali Zardari is the first politician in the history of Pakistan to contest the presidential election for the second time. Depending on his victory, he will be the only person who will hold the office of the president for the second time.
Before him, although Pervez Musharraf had also held the office of president twice, but his presidency from 2001 to 2007 was not the result of any electoral process, but on June 20, 2001, he appointed himself as the president of the country. However, in 2002 he resorted to a controversial referendum to legitimize his presidency.
In 2007, he was re-elected as President. He was allowed by the Supreme Court to contest the elections in uniform, but later he resigned from his post in 2008 after the removal of the uniform and the announcement of impeachment by the new government.
Zardari was born on July 26, 1955 in the house of Hakim Ali Zardari, who was one of the early associates of People’s Party founder Quaid Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Later Hakim Ali Zardari joined the National Awami Party.
The Zardari family has been active in both politics and business since the beginning. Asif Ali Zardari is educated from Cadet College Pataro after St Patrick’s School.
Asif Ali Zardari acted as a child star in the Pakistani film ‘Salgirah’ which was probably released in 1969. Asif Ali Zardari played the childhood role of the legendary actor Waheed Murad in the Pakistani film Birthday.
In 1987, Asif Ali Zardari married Benazir Bhutto.
When Benazir Bhutto became the Prime Minister in 1988, Asif Ali Zardari was in Islamabad facing allegations of Mr. Ten Percent. Mr. Zardari was arrested in 1990 when the Benazir government was overthrown and he was released from jail when President Ghulam Ishaq Khan dissolved the assemblies. He served as a caretaker minister in the cabinet of Caretaker Prime Minister Balkh Sher Mazari.
Asif Ali Zardari was elected as a member of the National Assembly in the recent general elections.Zardari was treated badly in jail during the PML-N era. Sometimes Asif Zardari was kept in one jail and sometimes in another. Benazir Bhutto used to travel from one prison to another with her children for meetings. Meanwhile, President Ghulam Ishaq Khan filed 19 corruption references against Benazir Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari.
He became a member of the National Assembly in 1990 after the removal of the Benazir government. Then, during the second term of Benazir Bhutto, he was a member of the National Assembly and Minister of Environment and Investment. He was a member of the Senate from 1997 to 1999.
After the dismissal of the second Benazir government on November 5, 1996, Asif Zardari’s name came up in the Murtaza Bhutto murder case and he was the one who killed him. During the second term of the Nawaz Sharif government, he was accused of involvement in the murder of former steel mill chairman Sajjad Hussain and a judge of the Sindh High Court, Justice Nizam Ahmed, and involvement in drug smuggling, Swiss company SGS Cotechna, Dubai’s ARY Gold Company. Several cases were made including import of gold, purchase of helicopters, purchase of Polish tractors and commission in French Mirage aircraft deal, purchase of Rockwood State in UK, money laundering through Swiss banks and oil for food scandal in Spain.
Such lists were also released that Asif Ali Zardari bought several thousand acres of valuable agricultural and commercial land in Hyderabad, Nawabshah and Karachi, took shares in six sugar mills. Nine in UK, nine in US, two each in Belgium and France and several projects in Dubai invested under different names. There are also allegations of setting up as many as 24 front companies overseas to hide his mysterious wealth.
Zardari was arrested again in 1996 and released in 2004. Thus, from 1990 to 2004, Zardari was in jail for about 11 years. He is probably the longest serving politician in Pakistan after GM Syed. During the first two terms of Nawaz Sharif, Asif Ali Zardari was completely imprisoned, he was not released even once on bail. He was not even released on parole to attend his mother’s funeral. He escaped jail with such bravery that ideological opponent Majeed Nizami gave him the title of ‘Mard Har’. He was later acquitted in almost all the cases.
On December 27, 2007 on the martyrdom of Benazir Bhutto, Asif Ali Zardari became the head of the party as a result of Benazir’s will by shouting ‘Pakistan Khape’ and was elected President of Pakistan on September 9 , 2008. He remained the President of Pakistan until September 8, 2013. He was the first democratic president to complete his term in the presidency.
Asif Zardari is called the king of reconciliation. Due to his conciliatory politics, the parties that considered each other as political opponents, People’s Party and PML-N came together in a coalition government for the first time in 2008.
Although this alliance did not last long, due to the harmony of the two parties, the assemblies completed their term for the first time in the democratic era. Through the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Amendments, the Constitution was restored to its original state and the powers that had been taken away from the Parliament during the Musharraf era were transferred back to the Parliament. Apart from this, the NFC Award was released.
Despite mutual political differences, the PML-N and the People’s Party once again formed a government together in 2022 and ran a joint coalition government for 16 months. Even after campaigning against each other, the People’s Party supported the PML-N in the formation of the government and both parties formed the government in the Federation, Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan through cooperation with other political parties.
News Source: Urdu News
Translated by Raquia Iftikhar (PNP Intern)